This is my first try at anything remotely angsty so please, be kind. Try not to laugh too hard. I was just so torn up about the end of series 2 that I felt I had to express it somehow! Oh, by the way, this contains MAJOR SERIES 2 SPOILERS and I would seriously reconsider reading it if you don't know the ending.

Disclaimer: The BBC owns Robin Hood, not me. Surprising, huh?

Things should not have ended this way.

She was too young, too beautiful, too headstrong, too alive. This could not be the end. Could not be her end. An image of Marian flitted through Robin's mind as he lay on the damp, mossy floor of Sherwood Forest. He closed his eyes to escape the picture, escape the hollow ache that seemed to spread from his chest to his fingertips every time he thought of her.

He would never touch her again. Never kiss her. Never run his fingers through her dark hair. Never feel the warmth of her body beside his.

Never hold her small, pale hand in his.

He would never hear her voice again. Never hear her laugh. Never hear her call him foolish or arrogant.

What he wouldn't give to hear her reprimand him again. To hear her annoyed, exasperated sigh once more. He would walk to the ends of the earth if it meant he could hear her speak one last time. Hear her say those words that were always whispered desperately between hurried kisses and dashing escapes.

Like a bird traveling over sea and land, his thoughts flew back to the desert where Marian, like him now, lay still, unmoving.

In a distant land, far from home, she was alone. Only the wind and sand and moon to keep her company this cool night. Skies she did not know and stars she could not recognize were all that hung above. Like a sailor on a vast and unknown sea, Robin thought, Marian was lost. In a land not her own. Far from home. Far from family.

Far from him.

Sleep, softly and comfortingly, began to tug at the corners of his mind. Images of Marian and the Arabian night floated before his eyes as he drifted to a place that only dreams could bring him. Marian was alone in the cool desert night.

But, no, not alone at all. Not here. The moon and stars, no longer distant and cold, twinkled in a deep indigo sky. A tent in the desert. The heavy perfume of flowers. Dark-skinned women dancing to the sound of music, lyrical and unfamiliar. Marian laughed, lounging before the warmth of a fire. The golden light of the flames flickered across her lily-white skin and she smiled to him lazily. She was not alone here.

She was waiting for him.

A nightbird calling for its mate pulled his mind from half-consciousness back to reality. Back to the unforgiving forest floor. Robin stifled a groan as he opened his eyes to stare, through the bare branches above, at the cloudy and starless night sky above.

A sky he could not recognize. A moon he could not see. A sailor on a cold, unfamiliar sea. Like Marian, Robin realized with heaviness in his chest, he was lost too. Without her, he was like the nightbird whose sad song echoed still through the quiet forest. Like a bird who flew over wilderness, over sea, over mountain, searching the world for his mate. Calling to the emptiness of echoes and lonely desert nights.

Things should not have ended this way.

Spanks, reader! Hope you enjoyed it/did not pee your pants from overexposure to hilarious, poorly written melodrama! Reviews are always welcome!

SH